Social media site offers new way to conduct business

By G. Michael Dobbs
news@thereminder.com
SPRINGFIELD – Take a bit of Facebook, sprinkled a bit of Angie’s List and add a dollop of LinkedIn. The result is Piddx.com, a new social media site designed to help people with skills meet those who are in need of those skills.
Co-founders Spiro Marangoudakis and Ian Ricci are the two Springfield-based entrepreneurs who are hoping their new website will encourage a new way to conduct business, get to know people and build a virtual as well as a real community.
Ricci explained to Reminder Publications they have been working on Piddx since 2011. Marangoudakis said the name for the website comes from a Greek word meaning “to jump.”
The two men have been friends for years. Ricci started a successful Internet technology business, REMAGINE in 2003 and has worked for a number of start-up businesses around the Northeast. Marangoudakis is a graduate of Brown University’s Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry program with a Ph.D.
Marangoudakis said, “What’s cool about our service is that it sparks ideas.”
Unlike Angie’s List, the site isn’t just about professionals and there isn’t a fee to use it. Both men emphasized the site is designed to show a person’s professional life as well as their interest, hobbies and skills.
Marangoudakis sees the site as a way people could “re-invent themselves” in today’s economy.
Ricci noted, “People can state what the love to do, get credibility and create a reputation.
He added that www.piddx.com is a “mini-referral system.”
The site not only allows people to contract with someone for a service, it also allows people to barter for an exchange of services. There is a way to rate the services, send messages between users and even put up a service to a group of bidders.
Registration is free for the service.
Ricci said that even in the age of the Internet, “still the best way to find something is word of mouth.” Piddx.com puts those personal referrals on the Web.